Metro State College's tuition plan for illegals could teach the country a lesson

Congress won't pass the DREAM act and the Colorado Legislature killed ASSET. But Metropolitan State College (soon to be Metropolitan State University of Denver) is ready to do the right thing for would-be students who are living here illegally, kids who were brought to this country by their parents years ago and now consider Colorado home. Their only home.

Until now, any undocumented students attending Metro have been charged out-of-state tuition -- even if they've lived in Colorado long enough to qualify as a state resident, even if they've graduated from a Colorado high school. But at 9 a.m. this morning, the nine members of Metro's board of trustees will vote on a proposal to create a new tuition category, one that would charge a qualified, undocumented student $6,716 a year in tuition -- compared to $15,985 a year for out-of-state students and $4,304 for regular in-state tuition.

Like ASSET, the proposal would prohibit any state aid or subsidies going to the undocumented students.

Unlike ASSET, this deal looks like it's going through.

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The issue has been debated for a decade; in 2004, our cover story "Head of the Class" laid out the dilemma facing Pablo, a star student at West High School who was undocumented, which meant his future options were limited.

Metro started exploring the possibility of a new tuition category for undocumented students after ASSET stalled in the Colorado legislature. School officials argue that it's a wise investment in this state's future -- and they're right.

Any day now, the Supreme Court will release its decision on the Arizona law that requires police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone they stop, anyone they want to stop. But in the meantime, Metro could teach the rest of the country a lesson in how to truly make America a land of opportunity.

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword, Denver’s News and Arts weekly, in 1977; she’s been the editor there ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly Colorado Public Television roundtable Colorado Inside Out, the former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies -- a post that got her an unexpected interview with former President Bill Clinton in front of a thousand people (while she was in flip-flops) -- and played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City.